Gospel Reader

Question: People are sinful, but the sin offering of the Lord Jesus is forever effective. As long as we confess our sins to the Lord, He will forgive us. We are sinless in the Lord’s eyes, so we can enter the kingdom of heaven!

2018-10-14 11:22:4577

Answer: Lord Jesus absolves mankind’s sins, but that doesn’t mean we don’t sin. That doesn’t mean we have been freed from the control of our sins or have been cleansed. Lord Jesus absolves our sins. What does “sin” really refer to in this context? We all know adultery, theft, etc. Anything that violates laws, commandments or God’s words is a sin. Any action that resists, condemns or judges God is also a sin. Any blasphemy against God is a sin, a sin that cannot be absolved! In the Age of Grace, Lord Jesus martyred himself for our sins. Only those that pray to the Lord and repent will not be condemned or sentenced to death. That is to say, God will no longer see them as sinners. People who are absolved of their sins can pray directly to God and share in His grace. That is the true meaning of “absolution”. Although our sins were absolved by Lord Jesus, that doesn’t mean we have stopped sinning and resisting God. Because sinning is in our nature, we are still able to resist and betray God and take Him as our enemy. How can people like that be qualified to enter the heavenly kingdom? It’s just as Almighty God said, “A sinner such as you, who has just been redeemed, and has not been changed, or been perfected by God, can you be after God’s heart? For you, you who are still of your old self, it is true that you were saved by Jesus, and that you are not counted as a sinner because of the salvation of God, but this does not prove that you are not sinful, and are not impure. How can you be saintly if you have not been changed? Within, you are beset by impurity, selfish and mean, yet you still wish to descend with Jesus—you should be so lucky! You have missed a step in your belief in God: You have merely been redeemed, but have not been changed. For you to be after God’s heart, God must personally do the work of changing and cleansing you; if you are only redeemed, you will be incapable of attaining sanctity. In this way you will be unqualified to share in the good blessings of God, for you have missed out a step in God’s work of managing man, which is the key step of changing and perfecting. And so you, a sinner who has just been redeemed, are incapable of directly inheriting God’s inheritance” (“Concerning Appellations and Identity” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). Lord Jesus’s work of absolution only absolved our sins; it didn’t resolve our corrupt nature. Our inner arrogance, selfishness, deceitfulness, and other aspects of our satanic nature still remain. This corruption is deeper than sin; it is much more tenacious than sin. It is the source of our resistance of God. If these satanic temperaments are not resolved, people will continue to sin, resist God and judge and condemn Him according to their own conceptions. When they suffer and are persecuted, they can deny God and betray Him as Judas did. When they hold positions of power, they establish independent kingdoms in resistance to God. Some people steal God’s offerings and offend His disposition; they will be condemned and extinguished by God. Now most pastors and leaders in the religious community do not implement the words of Lord Jesus. They interpret the Bible based on their own conceptions. They treat the words of biblical people as if they’re the words of God. They exalt people’s words instead of testifying about Lord Jesus’s words. This makes the faithful revere people and follow people. They have no place for Lord Jesus in their hearts. They become trapped and controlled by their religious leaders’ dominion. This is especially true when Lord Jesus returns to do His works. Those priests and leaders do not pursue or study God’s works. Instead, they condemn His works, judge Him and blaspheme against Him. They spread lies to trick their believers and lock them in the church. They publicly take God as their enemy and offend God’s disposition. This is the most serious resistance of God that there is. This is a sin that cannot be absolved! Their evil behavior in resistance to Lord Jesus is even more egregious than the Pharisees’ was! Therefore, if people’s nature, their resistance of God, is not resolved, if their satanic corruption is not cleansed, they’ll be capable of any evil behavior in resistance of God. How can these kinds of people enter the heavenly kingdom? Therefore, according to His management plan to save mankind and the actual requirements of corrupt humanity, God expresses many different aspects of the truth in the last days, and carries out His work which fulfills the prophecy in the Bible, “Judgment must begin at the house of God,” and is to resolve the key problem that corrupt mankind is controlled by their satanic nature. That is the way that man will gradually free themselves from their corrupt satanic disposition, stop rebelling against and resisting God, become able to truly obey and revere God. Only then will they be cleansed and enter the kingdom of heaven.